Crayon Cigarettes

Ellie Searl

Wild-eyed Sally waved the serrated bread knife in front of Ed’s face. I could see her through the crack in the kitchen door. Her untamed hair flew around and she spat venom. “If she comes in here, I’ll kill her. I hate her guts, and she better watch out!”

Ed knew how to handle Sally. He remained calm. “Sally, give me the knife. . .”

She made small jabbing motions toward his throat. “I hate her! She’s a pig! How can you stand her?”

“Sally, you don’t mean that.” His voice softened. “Do you really want to hurt Ellie?”

Sally was secretly in love with Ed, so she backed off, heaving the knife to the floor. It clatter-bounced on the tile and skittered under the stove.

Sally was part Cree, part French Canadian, part Scottish, and part unknown. I’m not sure which part of her wanted to kill me – probably all of it. She was thirteen, tall, skinny, abandoned by her family, and mad. She was mad at me because I wouldn’t let her go out. It was a weekday – a school night. The girls weren’t allowed out after supper on school nights. Not Cindy, not Carol, not Ellen, not Leez, not Tony, not Lauren, and not Sally - especially not Sally, who didn’t understand her emotions and couldn’t control an ounce of them.

A few weeks earlier, when Sally and I had been on better terms, we all sat in the living room wondering what our collective lives would be like after Ed finished theological school and we left the group home. Ed casually declared, “Sally, if you want me to, I’ll marry you.”

Sally’s cheeks turned apple red and her face slowly transformed from horror-struck to befuddlement to glee to utter and complete triumph. Without moving her head, she ping-ponged glances from Ed to me. Then under a cupped hand, asked Ed in a throaty whisper, “But what about Ellie?” Sally was devastated to learn that Ed would only officiate at a ceremony where she would marry someone probably most unwelcome at this time in her unfortunate teenage life.

My assistant, Carly, charged up from the basement. “What’s going on? Who’s screaming?”

“It’s Sally. I won’t let her go out, so she’s going to kill me - again.”

“Oh, ok, with a knife?”

“Yeah - would you check on Leez? I think she’s chanting. Make sure her door’s closed.”

Carol stuck her head out of her room “Sally! Leez! Shut – the – hell – up!”

Our daughter, Katie, stood at the top of the stairs clutching her blanket and stuffed baby weasel. “Mommy, I can’t sleep. Is Sally going to kill you? Leez is making a funny sound in her room. And Carol just said a bad word.”

“Let’s get you back to bed. We’ll read a story.”

Life in the group home was chaotic, to say the least. At any given time, there were twelve people living, eating, sleeping, cooking, cleaning, studying, or screaming in the house - seven female teenage wards of the state, two house parents with a four-year-old daughter, one live-in college student assistant, and a Caribbean housekeeper, Inez, who was a better cook than a cleaner.

By the time Sally wanted to kill me, Ed and I had been house parents for the United Red Feather Services of Greater Montreal for almost two years. Our house was a duplex in Montreal West converted into a one-family dwelling. The main floor had a living room, a dining room, two bedrooms, a full bathroom, and a long kitchen in the back that stretched the width of the house. The upstairs had the same configuration, with all five main rooms turned into bedrooms, including the kitchen. The basement had a finished family room and laundry.

Our room was on the main floor, so we could monitor daily activity, and Katie’s room was the kitchen-turned- bedroom upstairs. Hers was a nice space - cupboards for books, toys, and games, a sink for privacy, and a quiet balcony for us to sit in the sun and color and read stories away from the turbulence of broken teenage girls, who would still be on the road to emotional and physical bankruptcy had the Quebec juvenile justice system not stepped in and placed them in a strange home where they were expected to coexist in peace, friendship, and harmony, regardless of the heartbreaking reasons they had been removed from their dangerous homes.

How did two years in this house of turmoil affect Katie’s psyche? She has never complained, but I’m sure there is a part of her that recalls the heartache and desperation that spread around her like air-dust floating in the sun, seeping into her being as she breathed. What lingers in Katie’s now married, mother-heart that unconsciously resonates to the haunting memory of late night, hollow sobbing? Is there a residual empathy that serves her son or husband more compassionately because at such a tender age she witnessed the disenfranchisement of young women tossed from household to household? Does she watch her son more closely - or hug him more often? Does she over-smooth his path so he won’t stumble?

These were not areas of concern when we agreed to feed, supervise, and nurture seven troubled teenage girls for pay. We were a young family who needed a home and occupation while Ed finished theological school at McGill University. I received a full-time salary for serving as house mother and Ed received a part-time salary as house father. We paid no rent, and except for our car, all of our expenses, including food, were handled by the agency. It seemed perfect when we accepted the job. No one mentioned the havoc that would gradually erode our spirits.

Leez opened the door to her room. “Shiiiiitttttttt on you all! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” Leez had stopped chanting, and decided instead to regale the entire house with obscenities. Her profanity was usually more creative than a one-word shit repetition. I figured her level of frustration was so high she couldn’t dredge up the usual vulgar repertoire. “Shit and shit on you all.”

I knew Leez would continue swearing in the hallway until someone met her face-to-face and told her to stop, at which time she’d snigger and say something ridiculous, like, “I need a hairbrush.” Leez got attention by screeching, and all my effective methods as an experienced teacher couldn’t make a dent in her shriek-proof armor. Even the director of Red Feather agency had to admit she was truly impossible after he took her for a weekend to prove he could handle her better than we did – but she was unmanageable even with him, and short of electric shock treatments, Leez would remain an unpredictable pain in the neck. I felt vindicated, but that didn’t stop Leez from turning our already crazy household upside down whenever she wanted attention.

The house continued to reverberate with screams and threats as Katie and I settled in to read her favorite Maurice Sendak book - Where the Wild Things Are - 'The night Max wore his wolf suit, and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him Wild Thing.'

“Max was like Sally and Leez,” Katie whispered as she turned the page.

I tried to explain to Katie why the girls behaved as they did even though she had no reference points. I wanted Katie to understand, at least a little bit, that Ellen hid food and dirty underpants in a trunk at the foot of her bed because throughout her abused, miserable fourteen years, she never had anything to call her own, or that Cindy was disrespectful and sarcastic because she didn’t trust I’d care about her for more than two seconds, or that Tony was afraid we’d beat her senseless for nothing more than forgetting to hang up her coat, like her dad did when he broke her arm before the authorities placed her in foster care, or that Lauren cried herself to sleep every night because her twin sister was placed in a different group home across town and hardly ever saw her, or that Carol, the oldest, most mature, most reliable of the bunch, might not ever get over the debilitating grief she carried since her boyfriend, Jack, drowned the summer before after shooting himself up with heroin and diving off a cliff into the St. Lawrence River.

But Katie never judged the girls. She just wanted to imitate them or play games with them or watch them gossip and bicker. Katie smoked her crayons to be like Ellen. She wanted her long, curly blonde hair to look like Carol’s - twisted into a floppy knot and decorated with paper Christmas ribbons and plastic barrettes. She sat next to Cindy during study time, writing repetitive loops page after page on her steno pad, and she read Lauren’s big books upside down in the dark.

Sally stormed up the stairs and pounded on Katie’s door. “Get out here, you bitch!”

I told Katie not to worry; Sally loved her and Daddy and me and nothing bad would happen. What made me so sure, I have no idea. There was little evidence that anyone would be ok in that house, with its exposed, sparking wires of rage, disappointment, resentment, and revenge hanging over us ready to collapse at any moment. Today, under the same circumstances, I’d have my cell phone and pager with me and maybe even wear a medical alert necklace. “Help! I’m pinned down by a crazed teenager and I can’t get up!” But at the time, I had confidence in my ability to maneuver around the hazards.

I stepped outside Katie’s room and shut the door. Sally’s squinted at me. Her arms were crossed, and she tapped her foot as if she were about to scold me for stealing cookies. She had no knife.

I merely said, “Sally, I know you’re angry, and that’s ok.” I walked past her, checking in my imaginary rear view mirror that she didn’t open Katie’s door. Sally stormed into the room she shared with Leez to continue their rants in private. That was the last I heard from either of them that night.

Ed and I did the best we could to help the girls navigate carefully through this tumultuous phase of their lives. Even Katie held their hands on bumpy sidewalks. But we couldn’t help them traverse the years back to their little-girl days to celebrate those long-past milestones - losing a first tooth, entering Kindergarten, finding a firefly, sitting on Santa’s lap, or graduating from eighth grade . These childhood highlights could have fostered trust, poise, security, and a sense of self-worth had they been noticed and commemorated.

All children deserve safe travel into adulthood. Unconditional love, absolute support, steadfast encouragement, and good will are their rights along the way. Rough roads and potholes are expected, but many children, instead, encounter more severe roadblocks: black ice, falling rocks, and dead ends – making the chances of safe passage negligible. If only these children could look over the map ahead of time and use their innocent, unsullied love and wisdom to mark their own routes into the future.

EVS 02/09

Drawing by Katie Searl Bodnar – age five

Searching for Signal

Ellie Searl

The older couple sat beside me in Row Three - wife in the middle; husband at the window.

The lady’s head looked like a camel molting in late spring. Sparse patches of short, reddish-brown dyed hair with muddy, grey roots stuck out of her head in clumps; a bald spot highlighted her crown. She wore a rayon turquoise outfit, sensible brown shoes with Velcro straps, and lots of costume jewelry.

The husband matched his wife’s lackluster style with his tousled grey hair and lumpy beige suit. He slumped so far into his seat I could barely see his face. He mumbled something to his wife.

“They’re down there.” She pointed to a pink, quilted bag under the seat in front of her.

“Huh?”

“They’re there . . . in that bag . . . down there . . . !”

“WHAT?”

He reminded me of my father – asking a question but oblivious to it when it was answered.

I could hear them shout at each other over the roar of the JetBlue engine and my headphones, which were already turned up several notches so I could watch “Real Housewives of Orange County” on the little TV above my tray table. The title of that show is a misnomer. Reality shows like OC Housewives don’t reflect real anything. They’re orchestrated and semi-scripted by the producers to titillate the audience with exaggerated drama, turmoil, and superficial, yo-yo relationships of fatuous non-actors. Seldom in real life are people’s everyday activities packed with such absurd behaviors and outrageous upheavals as those represented by these OC women, at least not in my experience. I don’t really approve of the show, but it’s fun to watch with my daughter for the ridicule factor, and I figured it would be good entertainment for part of my four-hour plane trip back to Chicago.

“I SAID . . . YES! . . . I BROUGHT THE SNACKS!”

The flight attendant looked at our row. She moved toward us just as a tall, thin woman shot into the galley, arms flailing, head thrust forward, spewing something at the attendant with such intensity I thought she needed medical attention. Her outfit screamed pay attention to me: black beret, sunglasses, fur-lined leather vest, skin-tight shirt and jeans, brown suede boots, and gold metal purse slung over her shoulder. The attendant held up a snack package, and they studied the nutritional values on a bag of sweet-potato chips. Just some diet issue. Apparently satisfied, the long-limbed woman returned to her seat in the back of the plane.

“WELL, GET ‘EM OUT.”

An armful of bracelets clanked as the wife extricated her bag from the metal rungs. She hefted it with an audible “umph,” trying to keep it from toppling back onto her feet.

“Help me hold onto this thing.”

“HUH?”

“I said. . . HELP. ME. WITH. THIS. THING!”

I tried to concentrate on the OC Housewives with their annoying outbursts and communication breakdowns. The scene I was watching had Vicki telling her husband, Don, that he wasn’t allowed to accompany her and her children on their annual Mexican vacation because, “It’s always been a tradition that it’s just me and the kids.” Of course, Don’s feels left out, and Vicki tells him to “Get over it,” but then she tells the audience that Don doesn’t fill her ‘love tank.’ There are times I feel compelled to shout at TV, and this was one of them. “Do you hear yourself - you sniveling, narcissistic twit?”

“PUT THE DAMN THING DOWN FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!” He slammed his hand on his knee.

The lady plopped the bag onto our shared armrest, shoving it into me, grumbling something about ‘always complaining.’ She unzipped the bag and dumped bananas, packages of peanut butter crackers, baggies of pretzels, goldfish, raisins, and wrapped caramels, and a couple of juice boxes into her lap. And into mine. I returned her bananas, caramels, and leaking juice box.

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear. Here let me get that.” Her bracelets rattled as she pulled a wadded tissue from under her cuff and began to mop juice drippings off my fingers.

“Really, it’s fine,” I told her, pulling my hand away from her and her used Kleenex. I turned up the volume on my headset.

She leaned toward her husband. “What do you want to eat?”

“WHAT?”

“WHAT…DO … YOU…WANT…? BANANA? JUICE? CANDY? TAKE WHAT YOU WANT! Geeze, what a pill.”

Just about that time, the mysterious woman charged up the aisle again, parked herself inside the flight attendant’s personal space, dramatically placed one hand on her hip, and wagged the finger of the other hand back and forth an inch from the attendant’s nose. The woman pointed down the aisle and spouted something with such acrimony I doubted it concerned the nutritional values of sweet potato chips. The attendant maintained a calm demeanor, but her furtive glances indicated she was reconnoitering escape routes. After a few minutes of the harangue, the irate passenger huffed her way back down the aisle. I was sorry I couldn’t hear this verbal exchange. I figured it was far more fascinating than the one beside me.

“GIMME A BANANA.”

“YOU WANT I SHOULD PEEL IT, TOO?” She ripped off the stem of the banana, but he grabbed it before she could pull down the first strip.

I looked around to see who besides me noticed this confluence of noise and activity in the front of the plane. But most travelers were otherwise occupied – reading, watching TV, sleeping, all with earphones firmly attached to their non-attentive ears.

My seatmate turned to me. She saw my headset, so she raised her voice. “You know, Jack can be so demanding sometimes. ‘Gimme this, gimme that.’ Can’t hear a word I’m saying. Should have seen him try to get through Security. I told him to take off his shoes. He knew he was supposed to take off his shoes. I told him before we left the house he’d have to take off his shoes.”

I stared at TV, hoping it would discourage the shoe commentary. It didn’t.

“Did he wear shoes he could take off? No. What does he wear? He wears those tie shoes that he can barely bend over to tie in the first place. Has to sit down to tie and untie his shoes. I told him to wear the shoes with the Velcro straps. Like mine.” She lifted her left foot and pointed. “ Now, I wore my shoes with the Velcro straps. See, they’re easy to get on and off. I wear ‘em everywhere – even to the Doctor’s office. Did he wear his? No. He had to wear tie shoes. Didn’t hear a word the security man said to him. ‘TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!’ We kept shouting at him. ‘TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!’ Lord, I wish he’d just go to sleep. Would you like a snack?” She held up a baggie of raisins.

“No, no, thanks. I’m just going to watch a little TV and then take a nap.” I turned my attention back to OC Housewives. Vicki and Don were at a fancy restaurant. Vicki wiped her eyes with her cloth napkin. “I need to know you love me. Can’t you tell me you love me?”

I felt a hand on my arm. “Where are you going, honey? You live in Chicago? Our daughter lives in Chicago. Not the city. The suburbs. She just had a baby. Girl. Named her Colby. Can you imagine? Naming a baby after a cheese? I hate to say it, but the poor kid looks like a squirrel. You like Chicago? Jack hates Chicago. I don’t know why he bothered to come this time. You sure you don’t want something to eat? Here. Have a banana.”

“No, really. I’m not hungry,” I lied. I was very hungry, but I didn’t want to share iffy food packed under doubtful circumstances by people who thought bananas on a plane were appetizing and called their baby grand-daughter a squirrel.

The high-maintenance woman shot up the aisle again, this time in a stomping rage, screaming, “Why the Hell hasn’t someone found me a fucking better seat? Christ! What do I have to do? Kick some asshole out myself ?”

In a swift second, three flight attendants moved in and stopped her next to my row. “Ma’am, we’ve already told you. There are no more available seats. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to remain where you are. What is the problem with it?”

“Well, it’s next to a baby, and I don’t like your rhetoric!”

“I’ll move!” I shouted at them without thinking. The aisle confab, startled into silence, looked at me with bewilderment. I lowered my voice. “I’d be more than happy to switch seats. Please, sit here.”

And without giving anyone time to refuse, I gathered my things, stood up, and waited for new seat instructions. My seatmate looked baffled. “You okay, dear? Can I help? . . . You’re . . . leaving?”

The last thing I heard on TV before I took off my headset was Jeana trashing the 'new girl' -“She’s lucky she didn’t get bitch-slapped!”

EVS 01/09

Ghosts in the Dust

Ellie Searl

I don’t like to go into the basement and look at all my old, grimy stuff. I have intended to phone 1-800-GOT-JUNK for months now. But there are some items in the basement that hold stories and are ripe with nostalgia. I can’t part with these bits and pieces of history. I’d be throwing away the stories they hold.

Old-fashioned cross-country skis and boots, long ignored and covered in layers of soot, reminders of frosty afternoons in the Adirondacks, ski-skating over snow-covered pine needles and moss.

Two by fours haphazardly leaning against Ed’s idle worktable where he fashioned our futon bed frame and Katie’s bench with birds painted on the side. Rusted nails, bolts, varnish can tops, and a hammer head lay scattered in sawdust shavings and wood chips.

Mildewed board games with ripped cardboard tops stacked on make-shift shelves: Scrabble. Parcheesi. Monopoly. A French edition of Chutes and Ladders from when we operated the group home in Montreal, all covered in twenty-five years of cellar grunge, laundry lint, furnace ash, mouse turds, and dead flies.

Everything smells musty. It’s too dirty to touch. But it’s all too evocative to give away.

The boxes in the far corner are filled with crinkled age-old, yellowed newspapers protecting a set of dishes I thought I’d want way back at an estate auction when I was in my mid-thirties. Katie was a just little tot and played with her Dakin stuffed dog on the grass behind my chair under the auction tent. The house was full of things that used to be part of the family that once breathed life into the walls and furniture. Item upon item taken from the house and delivered to the auctioneer. Items left over from lives with the same set of hopes and dreams that probably abounded among the people under the auction tent bidding on the personal treasures and mundane, everyday paraphernalia that eased or confused or complicated the lives of WVS and his family. Picture frames, an oak sideboard, a grease-stained kitchen table, with matching ladder-back, rush bottomed chairs, a set of silver spoons with WVS engraved along the length of the handle. I could hear people wondering – what nationality was this family? German? Irish? Did the father rule with an iron fist? Did he terrorize his wife and children into conciliatory behavior? Or was there laughter and lamplight and love around that oak kitchen table as the children knocked over glasses of milk and dropped buttered bread upside down, letting grease soak into the wood grain?

Out came a set of hand-painted, rose patterned dishes, probably wedding dishes, probably the good china. I wondered what special meals were prepared to honor these, their company dishes. Did their family argue over who would carve the turkey? Did they have rare roast beef with Yorkshire pudding at Christmas? Did they serve family style? Or did Father dole out the food and pass the plates politely to his right? Did they serve lighter than air sponge cake and home-churned peach ice cream on chipped dessert dishes? Was there a baby crying somewhere in the house during dinner? Did Grandma insist, “Let me go, Verna, you just sit there and finish your dinner. Put some meat on those bones.” Did Grandma bring the baby back into the dining room and sit between Aunt Jewel and Cousin Agnes as they oohed and aahed over the sweet, precious thing - the spitting image of Grandpa, and say in rotation - “Why, just look at those eyes.” and “It’s the darndest thing!” and “My, my!” and “Mark my words !” ? Is that baby now a great-grandmother rocking aimlessly in some nursing home common room gazing at, but not hearing, “Wheel of Fortune” re-runs, waiting for a night-shift aide to come and take off her sticky supper bib?

I never used that set of dishes. Perhaps I just couldn’t layer new stories of my life over those of this family. It would be like casting their life into oblivion. As long as these dishes remain packed in the very newspapers that were folded so carefully and gently around the fragile cups and dinner plates, then maybe their stories will stay alive somewhere in the minds of the long-ago children turned grandparent and great-grandparent.

And perhaps if I don’t give anything of mine away and I let my basement possessions wait for some garage sale or estate auction, a young mother will wonder about me, making my life significant and real in her imagination while her little girl plays with dolls in the grass.

EVS 11/08

Pass the Psycho-Babble, Please

Ellie Searl

Early in our marriage, whenever my husband and I disagreed, we’d argue to the point of verbal warfare. There’d be name-calling, accusations, recriminations. Issues became cosmic. It took days to get beyond the bitterness and resentment.

I started many of the arguments masking my agenda in a cunningly intoned, “I have a question,” which set Ed’s teeth on edge and put his guilt reflexes into high alert. He had learned that this was a loaded opener - the precursor to a kick-in-the-gut combat question: “Why do you always . . . ?” or “How come you never . . . ?”

I admit it was weasely to start trouble by announcing an accusatory question. I reasoned that hinting at a transgression gave Ed just enough lead time to marshal a generic defense, eliminating any need for a fight - “Oh, I’m sorry for (fill in the blank). Did that cause a problem for you?” Aside from this blame-eating reply, there were few responses I’d accept. He was wrong. I was right. Ed resorted to sarcasm, and I’d admonish him, tossing in belligerence and scorn for good measure. We became trapped in cyclical point–counterpoint condemnation.

These lose-lose fights left us exasperated and confused. Once we stuck pins into each other’s balloons, we didn’t know how to fix the holes. I’d develop a headache. Ed grew silent, very silent. It wasn’t good. We needed a change.

It was during the late 70’s – that period reeling from the aftermath of the Vietnam War - when Ed and I discovered improved ways of communicating. Our country was beginning to heal its civic wounds in the wake of national unrest. Conflict resolution and sensitivity training promoted by peace-not-war Flower Children trickled into the households of mainstream America. Haight-Ashbury hippies roused from their stupors, studied win-win communication, and sought employment with family health plans and retirement benefits. The Civil Rights and Women’s Movements gained momentum, causing society to rethink the consequences of inequality, stereotyping, and sexist language. I-messages became popular. And we discovered the benefits of Carl Rogers’ Client-Centered Therapy.

This non-directive approach to counseling entered our lives through a series of classes we took for our graduate degrees. Client-centered therapists aren’t manipulative. They ask very few questions, and they don’t tell their clients what to do, what to think, what to change, or what to believe. We appreciated that people in client-centered therapy could retain their dignity while focusing on uncomfortable issues such as hating their fathers or feeling inferior to their children. It was bad enough that people had to admit they were nuts. They shouldn’t also be subjected to the intimidating strategies of an aloof psychoanalyst, writing interpretations on a notepad, making diagnoses, and offering condescending treatment plans based upon coerced answers to embarrassing questions. “Hmm, mm. And how spastic are your bowels during these times of stress?”

Ed and I realized we were pseudo-psychologists in our day-to-day relationship, scrutinizing each other, as though studying rat behavior in a lab maze. We interpreted and diagnosed. We bullied each other into acknowledging transgressions, and I connived my way into heart-to-heart, I’m right - you’re wrong squabbles. But within client-centered therapy and a compilation of win-win, conflict resolution, sensitivity training, non-stereotyping language, and I-messages, we found a bag load of resources to help us devise a new approach to everyday conversation.

We created a home-based, spouse-centered system of communicating. We’d respect each other’s points-of-view. We’d keep our emotions stable, our feelings balanced. Our differences of opinion would be settled through negotiation, compromise, and productive decision-making. We’d be in Talk Heaven.

There were ground rules. No angry outbursts, no recriminations. No telling the other what to think or how to behave. No guilt trips. No accusatory questions. Keep it win-win.

So it began. We expressed ourselves through courteous I-messages and acknowledged each other’s feelings.

“I feel a little annoyed when the driver’s seat isn’t pushed back after you drive the car.”

“I hear you, Ed. It sounds like your legs might get all scrunched up. I don’t mean to cause you discomfort. I’ll be sure to remember next time.”

“Thanks, Sweets. I’m glad you understand.”

We engaged in positive discourse through mutual respect and understanding.

“I feel somewhat neglected when you watch football all night.”

“I hear you, El. It’s good to know how you feel about my sports channel. When this game is over, let’s pick a show to watch together.”

“Okay, Hon. I’ll read for awhile.”

We implemented reflective listening strategies.

“I feel just a tad frustrated that we’re moving so slowly down each aisle. I’m kind of anxious to get home.”

“Thanks for expressing your feelings. I gather you’d like me to stop looking for so many labels. I’ll try to speed up.”

“Great, and to be honest, I kind of already know how much sugar I’m ingesting.”

Feelings became clear.

“I feel really disappointed that you didn’t come into the store with me. I could have used your help.”

“Got it! I see it disturbs you that I might find it more enjoyable to listen to the radio in the quiet of the car instead of traipsing through the store with you again.”

“You seem to understand. I hope you listened to something really interesting while I did all the shopping.”

Feelings became very clear.

“It aggravates me that we came for a dinner party and now we’re listening to some pitch to give money. I must have missed something in the invitation.”

“I hear you. Apparently this charitable event upsets you.”

“I should have stayed home.”

“Good idea. Go home.”

Feelings became crystal clear.

“Look, it pisses me off when I choose a god-damned station and then you go and switch the god-damned station to some other god-damned station that I don’t want to listen to. I’m doing all the god-damned driving.”

“I hear you, Ed.

“Of course you hear me, unless you’ve got shit in your ears.”

There are times when abject failure tickles the soul. If I remember correctly, a giggle rose from my gut and burst through the grin I couldn’t suppress. Ed snickered. In recognition of the ridiculous, we collapsed into fits of cleansing laughter.

We had been trying to enlighten our marriage by solving problems of the heart with intellectual gibberish and text book terminology. Our spirits had become lost in a quagmire of artificial I-messages and contrived reflective listening exchanges. Attempts to follow the rules had made us automatons reading from a stoic script written for witless actors.

We missed our intimate relationship with all its foibles and emotional turmoil. It was time to revisit good old arguing - with some modifications. We separated the pitfalls from the benefits of our new-fangled strategies. Dump insipid collaboration. Keep negotiation and cooperation. Dump the gravity. Keep the humor. Dump the pretense. Keep the truth.

Now, when Ed and I have a concern, we get right to the point. I don’t start arguments with a sneaky “I have a question,” and we don’t pretend everything is hunky-dory when we’d rather wring each other’s neck. It’s almost Talk Heaven.

EVS 10/08

Meatballs on Bitterbrush

Ellie Searl

It’s remarkable what an aroma can do. Just a whiff of Italian cooking takes my thoughts across the country to a little spot of heaven and a life-changing adventure in the Pacific Northwest. My journey started at the curb of Seattle’s United Departures where Dick and Carol handed me the keys.

"Call us if you have trouble. Don’t forget - you’ll be out of cell range and radio reception once you start up the pass. The instructions for Sirrus are in the glove compartment. Have fun on your adventure, Kiddo. The kerosene lamp is always full. Help yourself to the rum in the freezer. Do you remember where the generator is? . . . Watch out for the deer . . .and the hunters. Wear red.”

The groceries purchased at a little IGA rattled around as I drove toward the mountains. I should have packed better, but I was in a hurry to catch the last sharp images of the waning October afternoon. Bottles collided with each other and against my suitcases. The pungent odor of deli peppers and dill pickles filled the SUV; I hoped sloshed drippings weren’t saturating the carpet.

I meandered up the winding roads on the west side of North Cascades Highway toward Washington Pass. Autumn splendor dotted the landscape with copper and rust. Shafts of sunlight streamed through splits in the valleys. I stopped at look-out points to photograph breathtaking golden panoramas. The intense clarity of the late October afternoon made this one-woman-adventure-into-the-wilderness exciting and celebratory.

I was on my way to house-sit Dick and Carol’s isolated cabin in the mountains while they sailed in the Caribbean. Their Golden Retriever, River, had been placed in a kennel, so I wouldn’t be required to dog-sit as well. One time I dog-sat for my other brother's two dogs, and after that, dog-sitting was about as agreeable to me as swimming in oatmeal. Even though there would be one dog, not two, and even though River wasn’t deaf and blind, didn’t ooze puss from his eyes, didn’t need eye drops, didn’t take four varieties of pills wrapped in bread - or stuck in peanut butter - or mushed into soggy dog food, and didn’t chase around the pool yelping at swimmers, I still refused. I did, however, agree to take care of the cat, Cricket, despite the fact that she was deteriorating from old age and a weak kidney. I knew that Cricket was afraid of people and wouldn’t show her face until I had moved around the cabin for at least four days. And cats, sick or not, take care of themselves – as long as they can locate their food, water, and litter box. She was my kind of companion.

I took too much time admiring the changing colors of fading daylight. When the sun finally slid behind the stillness of Lake Diablo, dusk, combined with looming mountain shadows, made driving menacing. The lack of guardrails at outcroppings floating over vertical drop-offs swept away the casual security I had felt just a few hours earlier. I was nervous. The smell of onions, garlic, and pickle juice was strong and nauseating. By the time I crested Washington Pass and started down the steep-graded s-curves, it was pitch dark. The SUV veered around twists in the highway just a few feet from precipitous ledges that hovered over sharp drops to the valley floor.

I rounded the bend where, according to my brother, some kids careened to their death because they weren’t paying attention. As excited as I had been by the exquisite views a few hours before, I couldn’t look. I clutched the wheel and kept my eyes on the road. Headlights beamed on red and brown where evergreen should have been. The dull colors were out of sync with postcard prettiness. A sense of doom magnified my already waning excitement, and I worried that global warming and infectious diseases were destroying the pine forests of the Pacific Northwest. I began thinking that my venture into the unknown was not such a bright idea. Perhaps I shouldn’t have left the company and comfort of my husband and home in Chicago to sail out on my own to this god-forsaken, desolate place. Not even the trees knew how to stay alive.

After convincing myself that those unfortunate dead kids were brainless blockheads on a drunken binge, I navigated the curves with invented courage - easing and braking, easing and braking - down the east side of the mountain, along the river, and then finally, up a steep rise to the safety of the cabin on Bitterbrush Road.

The night was eerily quiet, except for the stones crunching under my feet and a slight swish of branches high over head. Ebony stillness surrounded me. A symphony of stars in sparkling constellations I couldn’t name shone on me with mysterious silent glory from an inky sky. Gentle breezes nudged pine needles and oak leaves into singing their tree-songs. Cool air carried the scents of spruce and cedar.

I entered the warmth of the cabin and the joy of my brother’s life with Carol. I found a welcome note and house instructions beside a red and white striped bowl filled with Bombay Sapphire Gin, Martini and Rossi Dry Vermouth, a jar of olives, and a cut-crystal cocktail glass. The greeting was sweet and gracious. I placed the martini makings on the painted pine hutch next to the already-flowering Christmas cactus. Night magnificence, forest calm, and cabin lamplight revitalized me after that long, unnerving drive over Washington Pass in the dark. I opened a bottle of Champagne, drank a toast to my journey, and with glass in hand, searched for Cricket among the nooks, crannies, and quilts of her home.
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In the next three weeks I would go to the farmers market in Twisp and buy sunflowers and home-made, orchard-fresh peach pie from the 85-year-old woman who baked it, pastries from the Cinnamon Twisp Bakery, and double-churned ice cream from Sheri's Sweet Shoppe. I would visit the Winthrop Art Gallery and watch glass being sculpted into vases and bowls. I would drive along the Columbia River and marvel at the immensity and grandeur of our world, and with a packed lunch, take a four-hour sight-seeing boat trip up glacial Lake Chelan to Stehekin outpost. I would sit on the back porch in the rain and work on the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, and watch humming birds quiver around the feeders when the sun came out. I would find a Washington Mutual Bank in Omak, 40 miles away, and get my nails done on the same trip. I would congratulate myself on not reaching a state of panic when I woke up at 2:00 am and thought I was blind because it was so dark that it didn’t matter if my eyes were open or closed. And then I would scramble for a flashlight in pitch black terror and phone the electric company to ask if there had been a power outage.

I would stroke Cricket, who found me sooner than four days after my arrival, and who sat on my lap and purred despite her fear of humans. I would tend Cricket as her health declined and sadly caress her on her final days and feel her soak up all the love I could give her in her last home under the majesty of the Cascade Mountains. I would take her to the vet and stand beside her and hold her as the difficult but necessary decisions were made to relieve her of her pain and misery. Then I would drive back to the cabin with an empty cat crate knowing that Carol’s buddy of 17 years would not be there when she returned home to sneak up on her and snuggle again.

I would read books, write in my journal, walk along the river, drink champagne, sleep when I felt like it, and wear red. I would create savory meals while sipping martinis or white wine bottled in Wenatchee. I’d make fresh vegetable soup and seared ahi tuna with asparagus and BLT’s with fake bacon, and an abundance of scrumptious baked Italian meatballs, so many meatballs that I’d eat them again and again with spaghetti or as hot sandwiches or just plain cold, straight out of the refrigerator.

I would stand on the mountainside and look down along the green and orange vastness of the Methow River Valley and thank my lucky stars that I had this opportunity to live here by myself for a short, beautiful time. And I would forever treasure these moments of my journey into self-hood, self-discovery, self-sufficiency, and self-appreciation.

When my senses detect even a hint of oregano or basil, this memory wafts over me and takes me to that little cabin on Bitterbrush where I rejuvenated my soul.

EVS 09/08

Doesn't Make Cents

Ellie Searl

There is something about asking for money that makes my stomach go into knots. Just thinking about it makes me nervous and sweaty. I’d never make it as a prostitute. I wouldn’t earn enough money to pay for the outfit, accessories, and overhead necessary for success when cavorting with scum: slinky clothes, stiletto heels, cigarettes, whiskey, crack cocaine, rat-infested tenement. Not only would I charge too little for the humiliation of performing demeaning acts with creeps, I’d have to give more than half of my meager take to some pimp, who would most likely beat me up for being a useless earner.

It disturbs me that I’m too shy, or more likely, too insecure to charge for my services. Am I not “good enough”? Is my product not up to the standards of the general public? What am I afraid will happen if I charge too much? Or too little?

I’m a self-taught graphic designer. I design brochures, booklets, all-occasion greeting cards, posters, photograph collages, and other projects. But I’m a terrible judge of my own work. Others have said, “Ellie, this is so creative. It’s so beautiful. It must have taken a pile of time! How do you come up with such clever ideas?”

“I don’t know; it just happens.” Fortunately I have enough self-respect to keep the ah-shucks reply completely unassuming, not accompanied by batting eyelashes and a receding body slump.
This is not to say I don’t like to get paid for my services. I like to get paid - a lot! I just don’t like to charge. Like most insecure people, I want my product to be loved and wanted so much by my clients they will set the price higher than I would ever set for myself.

I want an exchange like this:

Ellie: “Oh, this is way too much; please, just give me half of that!”
Response: “Oh, no, Ellie, I’ll give you even more! You’re so worth it!”

That’s how to get paid in a perfect world.

When Kathy flipped through the pages of my most recent creation, “A Year of Celebration,” a calendar gift book she had commissioned me to make for her friend’s birthday, she exclaimed about its beauty, its creativity, and the obvious pile of time it took.

“So, how much do I owe you?” Kathy took out her checkbook.

This is when the ‘what-am-I-worth?’ ache grabs me in the gut.

It’s underhanded, I know, but blatant manipulation is a good way to monitor someone’s appraisal barometer. I maneuver opinions out of people in order to discover what they really think of my work. If they say “ok” to giving me a free-will offering, that means they’re not crazy about the product, and the initial excited flattery was really just ‘hide-the-disappointment-in-niceties to make her feel good.’ That tells me to back off. But if they insist on a giving me more money than a paltry contribution, well, then maybe, just maybe, I actually made a product they like . . and want to buy.

“Just give me what you want to. I had fun making it.” I wait for Kathy to respond.

“No way! Look what you’ve done here. There are 26 color pages, you’ve included each month of the year, you’ve cloned our faces into just about every picture, and you’ve used tons of ink. It’s wonderful, and I’m going to pay you royally for this fabulous book.”

The most I’ve ever set as an actual fee for any project was for the cost of the paper. I never charged for the price of ink, the time spent working, wear and tear on my computer and printer, the electricity, any traveling involved, not to mention the wine, cheese, gin martinis with olives, coffee, and Alka Seltzer that kept me sustained at the computer until 2:00 am while numbing my butt or freezing my fingers because the heat was turned down to 55 degrees five hours earlier.

Once, I didn’t charge anything. I brought a friend into my home, helped her design thank you cards using my computer, and then printed all 60 cards with my card stock paper on my color printer while we drank a nice merlot. She wanted to pay me, but I lied and told her I do this all the time . . . for the love of it. I know; I’m an idiot. Did I mention it was my merlot?

I tell Kathy, “Ok, How about $50.00?”

“How about I triple that. You can’t do work like this and not get paid what it’s worth! You’re cheating yourself!” Kathy was adamant.

The manipulation paid off this time, probably because she was a friend of mine. The next person will have to be just as good exploitation material if I am to make any kind of living selling my free-lance graphic design projects - or anything else, for that matter.

If I do decide to try the oldest profession, I’d at least have the basic inventory readily available.

EVS / 8/08

Brave Runner

Ellie Searl



I lined up beside the others. I crouched, positioned my skates, and waited for the whistle. The others came from out of town. They looked cold and uncomfortable in tight stretch nylon suits with matching gloves and hoods. I knew they’d trip on those impractical skates: black lace-ups with extended, smooth-tipped blades. They’d never grip the ice.

I’d been figure skating on Lake Champlain in upstate New York since I was a toddler, and by the time I was twelve, I was a marvel on ice. I could skate both forward and backward. I could make almost perfect, though wide, figure eights. I could even skate on one leg without falling down. And I liked speed. I skated faster and farther than all of my friends, so I entered the Winter Carnival Speed Skating Competition.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was way out of my league.

The whistle blew. I shoved off. The others sailed past me. Elongated blades swooshed and clinked, spewing sprays of shaved ice. Lithe, slender bodies swayed in hypnotic rhythm. I was stunned.

So calm, so fluid, competing with each other at a pace I didn’t expect. The heat of shame stung my cheeks and ears. Long legs drifted effortlessly ahead of me in seamless, congruent strides. Arms swung left, then right, then left again, in parallel formations. Wiry torsos leaned forward and a bit to the side as they banked around the track.

Hindered by thick wool snow pants, I chugged along with as much oomph as I could muster, my chunky legs trying to gain speed and make headway. I was desperate to prove I was good.

Chin leading, arms akimbo, I pushed my metal blades in an acceleration of flying frenzy. My short legs lunged faster and faster, faster and faster, bouncing on ice patches, tripping on the tips of my skates.

For each one of the racers’ smooth, effortless glides, my feet made three, maybe four, awkward thrusts. The muscles in my thighs stung. My throat ached from shallow, rapid breaths of raw, frigid air. Ice shavings pitted my face and stung my eyes.

Arms flailing, heart pounding, I hurtled forward, the pain in my legs growing almost unbearable. Frost clung to my eyelashes; my fingers felt sticky with sweat inside my mittens. The others elegantly and effortlessly sliced through space with confident complacency - in no particular hurry, expending no particular energy.

I began sprinting wildly on the serrated tips of my blades. Dagger points formed mini-craters as the metal teeth dug into the ice. Chunks of frozen shards flew every which way.

I bounced and bolted in a state of hysterical panic. I was the Carnival Clown entertaining the crowd with idiotic gyrations and wild, toe-dancing jigs while the real race glided along in regal splendor.

Embarrassed tears clouded my vision. I wanted it over. Just don’t fall! Finally, in a desperate lurch, I pitched headlong across the finish line and collapsed into a snow pile.

There I sprawled, limp and exhausted. I began to sob. How would I face my friends? I’d forever and always be known as Stumble-Bum-on-Ice.

A distant voice startled me. “And Third Place goes to Ellie Volckmann!”

With reclaimed dignity I stood proudly to receive my Bronze Medal at the Annual Westport Winter Carnival Ice Skating Championship.

The sheer force of my determined twelve-year-old spirit and grit had plummeted me across the finish line ahead of four out-of-town, trained racers who looked abashed and bewildered in their skinny nylon suits and silly skates.

I wore that ribbon around my neck all day long and into the next week.

EVS 07/08